Rules for Visiting

by Jessica Francis Kane

that would be cinematic. And by that I mean movies make the most of situations like this but life rarely does.

But is the American Dream more house or car? Is it putting down roots or being able to move? Most people can’t decide.

Small talk is like improv comedy: rarely funny and always one sentence away from fizzling. When I must do it, clichés fill my head like a virus.

We live in a time when everyone gets a medal and all villains have heartbreaking backstories. No one thinks evil is intrinsic anymore, just someone making a really bad choice.

Of course, it’s the old tortoise-and-hare story, but isn’t it a little shocking when a myth shows up so clearly in the real world?

I remember my mother, not a great keeper of friends herself, used to say, “If you’re comfortable with yourself, you’ll never be lonely,” which didn’t feel like the whole story.

I bought an anthology of writings on friendship and read it straight through. Afterward I was certain of only one thing: friendship is hard to define. Epicurus believed it was necessary for a happy life. Aristotle believed it was necessary for a good life. Cicero thought life wasn’t worth living without friends, but that they should be made slowly and cautiously. Montaigne thought friendship occurred once every three hundred years and he was, of course, one of the lucky ones. Oscar Wilde said a friend is one who stabs you in the front, and C. S. Lewis proposed ideograms: if lovers are two people facing each other enraptured by the other’s gaze, then friends are two people standing side by side, looking ahead in the same direction.

“You make friends in your twenties and your sixties,”

My father told me once about friendship, “You have to decide if you’re going to take the bad with the good,” advice I did not find, then or now, especially helpful. It sounds as if you make that decision once, when in real life it can come up again and again.

The feeders of birds are always children or the elderly. They are the ones who seem to want that windy feeling of needy birds swirling around, while those of us in midlife crave calm.

You grow up thinking it’s natural for the ones who love you most to keep their distance. Love stands apart; love lets you come to it.

It seems to me that your oldest friends can offer a glimpse of who you were from a time before you had a sense of yourself and that’s what I’m after.

Sometimes the door to friendship doesn’t open as far as you think it might, and you’re vulnerable standing there on the threshold, not yet in or out.

Most of us, especially women, don’t have the luxury of an Odysseus or a Beowulf to deliver an epic speech upon arrival. So I say we’re hanging in there. And, where should I put my bag?

We had happy times, though our happiness was always a little desperate because it was never an adequate fix for whatever was making her sad. That is how grief infects families and turns some of us into detectives. The first grief was my mother’s; I inherited it.

When a friend is suffering, it seems you have three options: You can sit silently with her, you can make suggestions, or you can share heartache from your own life. None of the three is as simple as it sounds. I knew someone in college who was so full of advice it was exhausting to share problems with her. You left with a small treatise of self-improvement ideas and the urge to lie down. Share too many of your own stories and tragedy starts to feel competitive.

my mother liked rainy days because they seemed to reduce expectations; the rest of the world slowed to her pace.

As much as I’d like to deny it, a home does tell a story—in fact, it should—because the question of what you want to own is closely related to how you want to live.

I feel about historical houses much the way I do about biographies: guilty I don’t enjoy them more.

But when people are asked what is most important to them in a friendship, the top two answers are consistently loyalty and kindness.

In bonsai you often plant the tree off center in the pot to make space for the divine, a practice I respect with no real feeling for what it means.

I usually dislike a midday clear, by which I mean I like consistency. I prefer a day to finish the way it started, whatever the weather.

Perhaps a best friend is someone who . . . holds the story of your life in mind. Sometimes in music a melodic line is so beautiful the notes feel inevitable; you can anticipate the next note through a long rest. Maybe that is friendship. A best friend holds your story in mind so notes don’t have to be repeated.

“Because certain things only come into focus when a person is gone. It’s sad but true. You need memory and loss to polish your thoughts. Otherwise you’re just writing a speech or an introduction or something.”

Why do I like gardening? Because I worry I’ve inherited a certain hopelessness, a potentially fatal lack of interest, that I’m diseased with reserve. Making a garden runs counter to all that. You can’t garden without thinking about the future.

Do not arrive telling stories about the difficulties of your trip. Bring a gift. Make your bed and open the curtains. A guest room is not a cave just because it’s temporary. Help in the kitchen, if you’re wanted. Unless you are very good with children, wait until you hear at least one adult moving around before getting up in the morning. Don’t feed the pets. Don’t sit in your host’s place. If you break something, admit it. Say good night before bed. Always send a thank-you note.